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What is UX and Why Is It Important?

March 28, 2017

Imagine that you walk into a restaurant. There’s not a hostess stand to approach, people are sitting down but no one is around to seat them. Should you just sit down? Is there a place to order from before you sit down? Although you’ve gone into hundreds of different restaurants in your life, you’re not sure what to do next.

This is UX or User Experience. The restaurant should have been designed so you know what to do next. The same is true with software.

“We believe that user experience separates a mediocre product from a great product.”

What is User Experience?

User experience, or UX, is the overall experience a person has when using your software program, mobile app, or website. It includes how intuitive the design is, how pleasant it is to use, and whether it was successful in delivering what it set out to. In software, you look at a product and either know how to use it or you don’t. This is the User Experience of the product.

Importance of UX

When it comes to user experience, software developers have to make the same kind of decisions as restaurant designers. We need to think about what someone’s going to do when they open the app and whether it will be clear to users what they need to do next. This includes the controls, instructions, and ease of using the product.

Some software developers do it better than others. If you’re working with a software developer that doesn’t take the time to really account for UX, the user experience is likely to be poor. Remember, software with better UX typically sells more than software that is difficult for users to use. Consider the intuitiveness of Apple’s original iPhones compared to mobile devices at the time. It sold better because it was intuitive, offered a lot of value, and paid attention to the details that impact user experience.

How to Improve UX

Great UX will seem intuitive to users. They will be able to open the software or app, and just use it without having to undergo a lot of training. However, for something that appears intuitive to users, establishing effective UX is a tremendous amount of work for software developers.

Sure, software developers could just churn out a program that works quickly. But it takes a lot of hours to make sure that it feels natural for people and is highly intuitive. Any software team you hire should spend time thinking about what would be the most efficient way to actually do things in the program. This pays off in positive customer reviews and sales.

At Green Mango, UX is a cornerstone of our service. We believe that user experience separates a mediocre product from a great product. That’s why we take the time to think about what’s the simplest and most efficient way to get users to do whatever it is you want them to do.